6,473 research outputs found
Modelling human teaching tactics and strategies for tutoring systems
One of the promises of ITSs and ILEs is that they will teach and assist learning in an intelligent manner. Historically this has tended to mean concentrating on the interface, on the representation of the domain and on the representation of the student’s knowledge. So systems have attempted to provide students with reifications both of what is to be learned and of the learning process, as well as optimally sequencing and adjusting activities, problems and feedback to best help them learn that domain. We now have embodied (and disembodied) teaching agents and computer-based peers, and the field demonstrates a much greater interest in metacognition and in collaborative activities and tools to support that collaboration. Nevertheless the issue of the teaching competence of ITSs and ILEs is still important, as well as the more specific question as to whether systems can and should mimic human teachers. Indeed increasing interest in embodied agents has thrown the spotlight back on how such agents should behave with respect to learners. In the mid 1980s Ohlsson and others offered critiques of ITSs and ILEs in terms of the limited range and adaptability of their teaching actions as compared to the wealth of tactics and strategies employed by human expert teachers. So are we in any better position in modelling teaching than we were in the 80s? Are these criticisms still as valid today as they were then? This paper reviews progress in understanding certain aspects of human expert teaching and in developing tutoring systems that implement those human teaching strategies and tactics. It concentrates particularly on how systems have dealt with student answers and how they have dealt with motivational issues, referring particularly to work carried out at Sussex: for example, on responding effectively to the student’s motivational state, on contingent and Vygotskian inspired teaching strategies and on the plausibility problem. This latter is concerned with whether tactics that are effectively applied by human teachers can be as effective when embodied in machine teachers
Lipschitzness Is All You Need To Tame Off-policy Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning
Despite the recent success of reinforcement learning in various domains,
these approaches remain, for the most part, deterringly sensitive to
hyper-parameters and are often riddled with essential engineering feats
allowing their success. We consider the case of off-policy generative
adversarial imitation learning, and perform an in-depth review, qualitative and
quantitative, of the method. We show that forcing the learned reward function
to be local Lipschitz-continuous is a sine qua non condition for the method to
perform well. We then study the effects of this necessary condition and provide
several theoretical results involving the local Lipschitzness of the
state-value function. We complement these guarantees with empirical evidence
attesting to the strong positive effect that the consistent satisfaction of the
Lipschitzness constraint on the reward has on imitation performance. Finally,
we tackle a generic pessimistic reward preconditioning add-on spawning a large
class of reward shaping methods, which makes the base method it is plugged into
provably more robust, as shown in several additional theoretical guarantees. We
then discuss these through a fine-grained lens and share our insights.
Crucially, the guarantees derived and reported in this work are valid for any
reward satisfying the Lipschitzness condition, nothing is specific to
imitation. As such, these may be of independent interest
Brown\u27s Useful Guide: Where Theory Becomes Applicable to Classroom Practice
3rd Georgia Editionhttps://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/textbooks/1002/thumbnail.jp
Escape rooms in the EFL classroom: An action research study
This thesis investigates the implementation of gamified tasks through an educational escape room on student engagement in a 6th grade EFL Norwegian class, containing 27 students. Action research was utilized as the research method in this study, with focus on whether a gamified lesson could be implemented in an average classroom. It was also selected due to the researcher’s aspiration of reviewing and bettering their own teaching practice. Lastly, it was selected in order to conduct the study in a natural environment, with students familiar to the researcher.
The study aimed to explore whether the design of glossary and grammar exercises can affect student motivation and whether implementing these exercises in a meaningful context can aid the learners in acquiring vocabulary. The study found that gamification can enhance student engagement and motivation in language learning when tasks have been carefully designed to learners’ abilities. The study highlights the importance of effective student collaboration, task design and storytelling when creating engaging lessons that align with learning objectives.
This thesis aimed to contribute to the knowledge of implementing educational escape rooms, gamification and action research in a practical setting. Additionally, it intended to gain a perspective regarding actively utilizing student feedback in lesson design
Communication, Affect, & Learning in the Classroom
The purpose of the handbook was to synthesize the first three decades of research in instructional communication into a single volume that could help both researchers and instructors understand the value of communication in the instructional process.Preface1.Teaching As a Communication Process
The Instructional Communication Process
The Teacher
The Content
The Instructional Strategy
The Student
The Feedback/Evaluation
The Learning Environment/Instructional Context
Kibler’s Model of Instruction
The ADDIE Model of Instructional Design2.Communicating With Instructional Objectives
Why Some Teachers Resent Objectives
The Value of Objectives
What Objectives Should Communicate3.Instructional Communication Strategies
The Teacher As a Speaker
The Teacher As a Moderator
The Teacher As a Trainer
The Teacher As a Manager
The Teacher As a Coordinator & Innovator4.Communication, Affect, and Student Needs
Measuring Student Affect
Basic Academic Needs of Students
Traditional Interpersonal Need Models
Outcomes of Meeting Student Needs5.Learning Styles
What is Learning Style?
Dimensions of Learning Style and Their Assessment
Matching, Bridging, and Style-Flexing6.Classroom Anxieties and Fears
Communication Apprehension
Receiver Apprehension
Writing Apprehension
Fear of Teacher
Evaluation Apprehension
Classroom Anxiety
Probable Causes of Classroom Anxiety
Communication Strategies for Reducing Classroom Anxiety7.Communication And Student Self-Concept
Student Self-Concept: Some Definitions
Characteristics of the Self
Development of Student Self-Concept
Dimensions of Student Self-Concept
Self-Concept and Academic Achievement
Effects of Self-Concept on Achievement
Poker Chip Theory of Learning
Communication Strategies for Nurturing and Building Realistic Student Self-Concept8.Instructional Assessment:Feedback,Grading, and Affect
Defining the Assessment Process
Evaluative Feedback
Descriptive Feedback
Assessment and Affect
Competition and Cooperation in Learning Environments9.Traditional and Mastery Learning Systems
Traditional Education Systems
Mastery Learning
Modified Mastery Learning10.Student Misbehavior and Classroom Management
Why Students Misbehave
Categories of Student Behaviors
Students’ Effects on Affect in the Classroom
Communication, Affect, and Classroom Management
Communication Techniques for Increasing or Decreasing Student Behavior11.Teacher Misbehaviors and Communication
Why Teachers Misbehave
Common Teacher Misbehaviors
Implications for the Educational Systems12.Teacher Self-Concept and Communication
Dimensions of Teacher Self-Concept
Development of Teacher Self-Concept
Strategies for Increasing Teacher Self-Concept13.Increasing Classroom Affect Through
Teacher Communication Style
Communicator Style Concept
Types of Communicator Styles
Teacher Communication Style
Teacher Communicator Behaviors That Build Affect14.Teacher Temperament in the Classroom
Four Personality Types
Popular Sanguine
Perfect Melancholy
Powerful Choleric
Peaceful Phlegmatic
Personality Blends15.Teacher Communication: Performance and Burnout Teaching: A Multifaceted Job
Roles of an Instructional Manager
Teacher Burnout
Symptoms of Teacher Burnout
Causes of Teacher Burnout
Methods for Avoiding Burnout
Mentoring to Prevent BurnoutAppendix A To Mrs. Russell:
Without You This Never Would Have HappenedGlossaryInde
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Excellence in teaching and learning: A review of the literature for the Higher Education Academy
The Higher Education Academy commissioned a review of the literature on excellence in learning and teaching in higher education to enhance the higher education sector’s understanding of the varied conceptualisations and usages of the term ‘excellence’ and consider the implications for future policy and practice in relation to promoting and developing excellence.
The literature searched included published research in the form of journal articles; books; reports from UK policy bodies and other agencies; as well as ‘grey’ literature. It covered conceptual studies, academic critiques and research studies on learning and teaching, as well as policy documents.
Within a diverse and expanding system of higher education, such as in the UK, discourse on teaching and student learning highlights the tensions between different notions of excellence – for example, excellence as a positional good for students, as an aspirational target for continuous quality enhancement, as a form of reputational advantage for higher education institutions or as a means for achieving governmental economic and social goals.
The review addressed questions of conceptualisations and usage at different (but interlinked) levels: system-wide; institutional; departmental; individual, and from two different perspectives, teaching and student learning
Serious Game Design Principles: The Impact of Game Design on Learning Outcomes
This dissertation examines the research question How do video game design principles affect learning outcomes in serious games? This research first develops a theoretical foundation concerning the meaning of the terms game and serious game . This conceptual clarification is broken down into analytic propositions, which state that games have participants, rules, goals and challenges, and synthetic propositions, which state that the games should be intrinsically compelling, provide meaningful choices, and be self encapsulated. Based on these synthetic propositions, three hypotheses were developed. The hypotheses are that games with an enhanced aesthetic presentation, more meaningful choices, or provide player competition will elicit higher learning outcomes than identical games without these factors.
These hypotheses were tested via a quantitative experiment involving 172 undergraduate students in the Old Dominion University Chemistry Department. The students were asked to play a chemistry-oriented serious game entitled Element Solitaire©, which was created by the research author. The students were randomly given different treatments of the Element Solitaire© game to play, and the difference between their learning outcomes were compared. The experimental results demonstrated that the aesthetic presentation of a game can have a significant impact upon the learning outcome. The experiment was not able to discern significant effects from the choice or competition conditions, but further examination of the experimental data did reveal some insight into these aspects of serious game design. Choices need to provide the player with options that have a sufficient value that they will be considered and the application of competition within games needs to be judiciously implemented to promote a positive affect for all players.
The results of the theoretical foundations and empirical evidence were then combined with additional theoretical research to develop a set of design principles and a proposed serious game development process. These guidelines were researched and examined via the design and development process of several serious game prototypes and the examination of a large body of existing serious games. The end result is a practical procedure that is rooted in theory and quantitative experimentation
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The role of machine learning in personalised instructional sequencing for language learning
The origins of personalised instructional sequencing can be dated back to the times of the Ancient Greeks to the times of Alexander The Great's tutor, Aristotle. However, over the centuries the demand for education and growth of students has been disproportionately greater than the number of teachers in training. Therefore, there has been a longstanding interest in finding a way to scale education without negatively affecting learning outcomes. This interest was fuelled further with the advent of computers and artificial intelligence, where a plethora of systems and models were built to bring technology driven personalised instructional sequencing to the world. Unfortunately, results were far from groundbreaking and many challenges still remain.
In my thesis, I investigate three aspects of personalised instructional sequencing: the personalised instructional sequencing mechanism, the student knowledge representation, and human forgetting. While I do not cover the entirety of personalised instructional sequencing, I cover what I consider the foundational components. I link psychological theory to model selection and design in each of my systems and present experiments to illustrate their impact. I show how reinforcement learning can be used for vocabulary learning. I also present a model that uses neural collaborative filtering to learn student knowledge representations. Lastly, I present a state-of-the-art model to predict the probability of vocabulary word recall for students learning English as a second language. The system's novelty lies in the use of word complexity to adapt the forgetting curve as well as its incorporation of psychological theory to select an appropriate model
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